1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an image-forming device for elongating an image in a predetermined direction, which is employed in an electronic apparatus, such as a tape printer and a word processor, and a printing apparatus incorporating the device as well as an image-forming method therefor.
2. Prior Art
Conventionally, to obtain an expressive printed image, rich in variety, of entered characters including letters and symbols, an electronic apparatus having the printing capability, such as a word processor, is capable of forming an image generally increased or reduced in size by employing various character sizes, or forming an image generally elongated or shorted in a horizontal direction (in a left-right direction) or in a vertical direction(in a top-bottom direction).
The conventional electronic apparatus, which is capable of expanding or contracting, or elongating or shortening an image as a whole, however, is not capable of forming e.g. an image partially elongated. More specifically, it is impossible to form an image of one character (one character image), which has a left half portion having a normal or original size and a right half portion having an elongated size.
Of course, from an image (character string image) of a plurality of characters shown in FIG. 12A, it is possible to form a partially elongated image as shown in FIG. 12B. However, this image is merely formed by changing the whole size of a character image of each selected character, but not formed by changing part of the character image. What is more, to form such a modified character string image, the user is required to set a rate of elongation for each character image, and the operation of the apparatus becomes very troublesome. Further, this character string image is formed by stepwise varying the rate of elongation, on a character by character basis, and it has been impossible to form character string images by continuously changing the elongation rate (see FIGS. 5A to 5E).